"What are you doin'—" He ceased speaking suddenly, as he saw his friend's bandaged face, and cried, in something very like alarm, "Wha—wha—what's happened to you?"
"There was a burglar in the house, an' I tackled him."
This was sufficient to bring Master Plummer to a sitting posture at once, and he demanded to be told all the particulars.
Joe began to comply with his friend's request, but was interrupted by the voice of aunt Dorcas from the room below.
"George! Don't you allow Joseph to say a single word to-night. He must be kept perfectly quiet, or no one can say what may be the result of his terrible wounds. Go to sleep immediately, both of you, and to-morrow morning I'll do the talking, if Joseph isn't strong enough."
"Go on, an' tell me all about it," Plums whispered. "She won't hear if we talk low."
"I'll do jest exactly as aunt Dorcas told me, even if she said I was to stand on my head for half an hour. A feller who wouldn't mind what she tells him ain't fit to live," and Joe got into bed, refusing to so much as speak when Plums plied him with questions.
Although he had made light of his wounds when talking to aunt Dorcas, they gave him no slight amount of pain, and this, together with his anxiety of mind, would seem to have been sufficient to keep his eyes open until morning; yet within a very short time he was sleeping as peacefully as if attorneys and burglars had never been known in this world.
Not until aunt Dorcas tapped gently on the door next morning did either of the boys awaken, and then Joe would have leaped out of bed immediately after answering her summons, but for the words:
"You're not to get up, Joseph, until I am positive you are out of danger."